Any Port in a Storm: Chapter 15

Let me put one of my patented Grimbous "shit gets serious" trigger warnings on this chapter. 

***

Ash's Story

Huali's hut was far more crudely furnished than her sister's.  Her bed is simply a raised section of the floor piled with homemade quilts and pillows.  Along her walls were hand crafted weapons.  A spear, a bow with a quiver of arrows, another club, and various daggers made of stone or shell.  There were a few wooden trunks along the back wall but beyond these things there was simply a lot of open space.

Huali sets me down to the floor as easily and as gently one would a toddler.  She stands up tall and looks down at me.  I was eye to nipple with her large tanned bare breasts and I do my best not to stare, though she seemed utterly unconcerned by her partial nudity.

“Do not be frightened.”  She says.

“I'm not frightened.”  I lie.  “I'm tired, I'm confused, I'm...overwhelmed!”

Huali hesitates and I can't help but notice she hasn't yet put down her club.  “Ashley...are you a witch?  Have you charmed me?”  I see her grip on the weapon tighten.

I choose my words carefully.  “No Huali, of course not.  Miru doesn't know what she is talking about.  Where I come from there are no witches.  No magic or sorcery.  Just technology.  I have none of those things.  I am just a woman, just a normal woman, lost and a long way from home.”

“Ashley, if you teach my sister magic...I will have to kill you.”  There was a chilling honesty to those words.  Her tone told me she did not want to do it but that she absolutely would if she had to.

I look up at this larger than life woman.  “I promise you Huali.  I have no powers.  Do you think I would let you take me prisoner if I did?”

Her tense shoulders relax.  “You are not a prisoner.”  She sets her club on a hanger designed for it built into the wall.  “You are a guest.  You are safe, you are loved.”

I had noticed this phrase used before.  “Thank you for keeping me safe.  Thank you for your love.”

She smiles at my words and for a moment her natural beauty lights up the hut like a flare.  While she didn't have the sublime feminine looks of her brother, Huali was a stunner of her own sort.  Long and lean with the sculpted musculature that belonged on a statue of some ancient war goddess Huali carried herself with confidence and a charming dash of cockiness.  Her face was more angular than her siblings which, combined with her full plump lips, gave her a vague resemblance to a Polynesian Angelina Jolie.

I decide to try to push my luck.  “Well, if I am a guest, am I free to leave?”

“No.”  Huali says bluntly.  “You will go to Tony.”

“I want to see him.”

“No.  Father says you two stay apart.”  She says as if it were law.  “I can take you places if you wish, but you cannot see Tony.”

I sigh.  I was a prisoner alright, at least for now.  There was nothing to do but make the best of it.  I look around the hut and see nowhere to sit.

“Miru was going to lay a mat out for me...”  I start to say.

“You can sleep with me.”  Huali informs me.  “My bed is large.”

“Errr...”

She chuckles at my worry.  “You are safe Ashley.  I feel great desire for you but I will not claim you until I have done battle with your man.”

“Ohhh boy.”  I look back toward her.  “Please don't hurt Tony.  He is injured and...”

“He will heal.”  Huali states.  “A victory over a wounded opponent is barely a victory at all.  He cannot even perform a proper haka with his injured leg, he is not ready for battle.  I will wait.”

“You...like women?”  I ask, already knowing the answer.

She nods and looks me up and down like I was perfectly prepared filet mignon.  “You are very desirable to me.  I want you.  I want to tear off your clothes and breed you.  I wish to claim you.  I...very much desire that.”

“Oh!  Oh my!  Ummm...uhhh...thanks?”  This was getting weirder and weirder.  “You folks certainly are...liberal minded.  Seeing your chapel I just assumed...you know, Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve and all that.”

She is confused at my words.  “We may breed you and I, God will approve of our marriage.  I will ask Father's permission of course but I believe I can receive his blessing.  Women may pair, obviously men may not.  Is it not this way in Michigan?”

What the fuck have their parents been telling these people!?  “In my culture anyone may pair with anyone, generally man and woman though.  But both partners choose to be together, nobody is...claimed.”

She stands up tall and thrusts out her chest, the muscles of her arms and abs flex.  “Do you find Huali desirable?”

“Oh!  Uh, ohhh boy.”  I stammer.  “Y-you are a very attractive woman Huali, but you see...”

She raises her hand for silence.  “Stop.  I have not proven myself to you.  You have not seen my strength.  I understand.  In time you will see that I am a desirable mate.”  She smiles again, again I cannot deny she was one hell of a fine looking woman.  “I prayed for a mate.  I believe you may be my prayer answered.”

I mutter and shake my head.  “Ohhh boy, oh boy, oh boy.  What have we gotten ourselves into?”

“You say I am attractive.  I desire you.  No more to understand.  I will prove my strength to you and we will be together.”

I put a hand over my forehead.  A gun, arguments, being separated, witchcraft, breeding, fighting, sin, love, lesbian attraction.  I felt like I had no ground beneath me upon which to stand.  Everything I knew had been thrown upside down.  I was truly starting to believe I was losing my mind.  “Can...we talk about anything else...please.”

Huali nods.  “Yes.”  She motions to the bed.  “Be comfortable.”

As casually as I can I try to make myself comfortable sitting on Huali's low bed...the bed I would be sharing with her tonight.

Her talk of attraction had me seriously worrying about the sleeping arrangements but I had no power to change it.  Huali openly wanted to have sex with me and I had to simply trust her not to do anything.  Not that I was entirely repulsed by the idea of what might happen, I'd experimented with girls a bit back in high school and quite enjoyed myself, but if Huali wanted to force herself on me there wouldn't be a damn thing I could do about it.  Beyond that, I was a married woman!  Tony would flip his shit if he heard Huali talking to me like she had.

Tony's Story

I do my best to continue answering Mara and Kea's questions though the fever chills began to run deep.  From time to time I would be forced to stop from shivering and my lightheadedness was getting worse and worse.

Still we have a good time.  I tell them about video games and 3-D movies and VR experiences.  I tell them they are like dreams made by other people.  They think it must be magic but I assure them it wasn't.  They hang on my every word, questions come one after another, and many times they laugh and giggle like sisters might anywhere in the world hearing such outrageous tales.  Despite my fever and my situation their laughter cannot help but brighten my worried heart.

Finally I am forced to stop.

“I...I'm not feeling well.”  I say as a tremor runs through me.  “We can do this again...another time.”

Mara reaches up and feels my forehead.  She pours me more water and I drink it down.  She lets out a worried sigh.  “The fever is worse.  It's going to get worse still.  Tony should rest.”

Just then the door swings open and the burly figure of Cormac steps through.  He looked as he had earlier but now he had the pistol tied to length of twine and worn across his body like one would carry a satchel.  Getting that gun from him just got a whole lot more difficult.  His dim green eyes eyes dart around the room taking in what was happening before settling on me.

“He's sick.”  The Irishman says with menace in his tone.  “He brought disease.  I should have known.”

Mara shakes her head. “No Father.  It is an infection.  His arm was cut.”

“Kea!  Leave!”  Cormac snaps.  

Kea scrambles to her feet.  “But Father...”  She says.

He fixes her with a stare.  “Do not argue!”

“Yes Father.”  She nods.  She gives Mara and I a worried glance before obediently hurrying for the door.  Cormac gives her room to pass then steps back.  “If Makea gets ill I promise you will pay.”  I wasn't sure which of us he was talking to.

“I'm not sick, it's not a disease.”  I say through chattering teeth.  “It's just a fever.”

“You brought sin and you brought disease.  You've come from the devil to test me.”  

I am reminded again that this man was mad as a hatter.

Mara tries to explain.  “Father, you are wrong.  He is not wicked.  He is not diseased.  It is just from a wound left untreated.  Like Huali had last month.”

“Marama, come here.”  Cormac says in a way that I did not like at all.

Mara pauses but then obeys, she approaches her immense father with her head bowed.  My heart sinks.  I see it coming the whole way.

“Wait...”  I reach out toward them.

Smack!

Cormac strikes his daughter across the face with a hard open hand slap.  The tiny Mara is battered to the floor in a heap, she instinctively covers herself from any blows that might follow.  Thankfully none do.

“Do not tell me right from wrong, wretch!”  He growls as he looms over his child.  “You are only here but for His mercy and my own.”  He points upward and then to himself.  “Never forget that!”

“I'm sorry Father!”  She whimpers.  “I don't forget.”

Feverish, injured, and unarmed I knew I was powerless here, but my heart burns with hatred.  “You piece of shit!  Why don't you come over here and...”

Two large steps later he is standing over me and a hammering fist comes down across my jaw.  CRACK!  My head snaps back and my already wavering consciousness spins like a carousel.  I groggily swing back at him but he was already gone.  He hurries back toward the door, obviously concerned about being in close proximity to me.

“FUCK!”  I spit the blood from my mouth.  “Fuck you!”

He looks back over his shoulder.  “Ashley will have to do the work for both of you until you're better...assuming you live.”  He looks to his cowering daughter.  “Nobody comes in or out until the disease passes.”  He pauses before adding an extra dose of cruelty.  “Perhaps we'll be lucky.  Perhaps you'll both die and we'll be rid of your burden at last.”

Mara trembles and says nothing.

Cormac gives me one last look then orders.  “Tell me when he is well.  Bad leg or not, we can find work for him.”

“Yes Father.”  Mara whispers meekly.

“He is a sinner Marama.  Do not pity him, do not be swayed by him.  He will tell you lies and try to poison your soul.”

“Yes Father.”  She nods.

Cormac steps out and the door slams shut.  I hear something rattle around and realize that he was barring the door from the outside.  Both Mara and I sit quiet a moment as his dreadful presence drains from from the room like puss from a festering wound.  My reeling head slowly settles down to merely dizzy.

Mara sniffles and stands up.  She wipes her nose, straightens her clothes, then proceeds as if nothing had happened to her.  She comes to check on me.  She sits at my side and cleans my chin and lips of blood, her left cheek still bore the pink welt of her father's attention.  “Are you hurt?”  She asks with selfless concern.

“No...oh my god, are YOU hurt Mara?  Are you okay?”

She nods.  “I talked back to Father.”  She lets out a humorless laugh.  “I never learn.  Dumb, dumb Marama.  Ungrateful Marama.  Wretched Marama.  Weak Marama.”  She sighs, her brave but sad fragile smile breaks my god damn heart.  “I owe him everything.”